| James Henry Breasted | |
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James Breasted in Chicago, 1928.
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| Born | August 27, 1865 Rockford, Illinois |
| Died | December 2, 1935 (aged 70) New York City |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | archaeology Egyptology |
| Institutions | University of Chicago |
| Alma mater | University of Berlin |
| Known for | Fertile Crescent |
James Henry Breasted (August 27, 1865 – December 2, 1935) was an American archaeologist and historian. After completing his PhD at the University of Berlin in 1894, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. In 1901 he became director of the Haskell Oriental Museum at the University of Chicago, where he continued to concentrate on Egypt. In 1919 he became the founder of the Oriental Institute at the University, designed to be a center for research into the rise of civilization in the Near East. In 1905 Breasted was promoted to professor in the first chair in Egyptology and Oriental History in the United States.
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Breasted's English and Dutch ancestors came to the American continent in the 17th century with the surname Van Breestede.[1] His father was a small hardware business owner in the 8,000-strong town of Rockford, Illinois,[1] where just months after the assassination of Lincoln and end of the Civil War, Breasted was born.
He was educated at North Central College (then North-Western College) (B.A. 1888), the Chicago Theological Seminary, and Yale University (M.A. 1892), where he studied under the Hebrew scholar William Rainey Harper. Harper encouraged Breasted to go to the University of Berlin, where he earned his PhD (1894) under the instruction of Adolf Erman. He was the first American citizen to obtain a PhD in Egyptology. James Henry Breasted was born on Aug. 27, 1865, in Rockford, III. He graduated from North Central College in 1888 and attended Chicago Theological Seminary but transferred to Yale to study Hebrew. He received a master's degree from Yale in 1891 and, on the advice of William Rainey Harper, went to Berlin. There Breasted studied under Adolf Erman, who had just established a new school of Egyptology, concentrating systematically on grammar and lexicography. Breasted received his doctorate from Berlin in 1894 with a dissertation on the solar hymns of Ikhnaton. He also married the same year and made the first of his many trips to Egypt on his honeymoon, spending much time exploring, and learning Arabic.
Upon his return to the United States, Breasted joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1894 as an assistant in Egyptology. By 1905 he was a full professor in Egyptology and Oriental history. In addition, he became director of the Haskell Oriental Museum in 1901 and chairman of the Department of Oriental Languages in 1915, a post he held until 1925.
In his early scholarly years Breasted embarked on several ambitious projects, one being to translate all extant Egyptian historical texts into English. The Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents (5 vols., 1906) became a standard work and established his reputation. Breasted also wrote monographs and textbooks. His History of Egypt (1905) was the first scholarly history of the ancient Nile written in the United States and attracted much favorable comment.
From 1905 to 1907 Breasted directed the Nubian expedition of the University of Chicago, which developed his interest in Egyptian religious thought. This culminated in the Morse Lectures at Union Theological Seminary, published as Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (1912). Here he took an evolutionary posture and traced man's moral ideas from Egypt. Breasted also continued to write texts, alone and in collaboration. The most famous of these was Ancient Times (1916), revised as The Conquest of Civilization (1926). The emphasis was upon man raising himself through intelligence and religious growth.
In 1919 Breasted originated the Oriental Institute of the Near East and directed the first expedition to Egypt and western Asia in 1919-1920. He was released from teaching duties in 1925 to devote full time to the institute, became Burton distinguished service professor in 1930, and retired in 1933. In 1933 he also published his best-known work, The Dawn of Conscience, an elaboration of earlier ideas.
Breasted died in New York City on Dec. 2, 1935, having securely established the study of Egyptology in the United States.
That same year he married Frances Hart, who was in Germany learning the language and studying music together with her sisters. The couple honeymooned in Egypt. It turned into a working vacation as Breasted had been recruited to build a collection of Egyptian antiquities for the University of Chicago.[2] Hart and her sisters were in Germany at the same time as Breasted, learning German and studying music.[1]
Hart died four decades later in 1934. The widower Breasted would marry one of her sisters.[1]
Breasted was in the forefront of the generation of archaeologist-historians who broadened the idea of Western Civilization to include the entire Near East in Europe's cultural roots. Breasted coined the term "Fertile Crescent" to describe the archaeologically important area including parts of present-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Israel.
He became an instructor at the University of Chicago in 1894 soon after earning his doctorate. Five years later, UC agreed to let him accept the Prussian Academy's invitation to work on their Egyptian dictionary project. From 1899 to 1908, he did field work in Egypt, which established his reputation. He began to publish numerous articles and monographs, as well as his History of Egypt from the Earliest Times Down to the Persian Conquest in 1905. At that time he was promoted to Professor of Egyptology and Oriental History for Chicago (the first such chair in the United States).
In 1901, Breasted was appointed Director of the Haskell Oriental Museum (forerunner of the Oriental Institute), which had opened at the University of Chicago in 1896. Though the Haskell Oriental Museum contained works of art from both the Near East and the Far East, Breasted's principal interest was in Egypt. He began to work on a compilation of all the extant hieroglyphic inscriptions, which was published in 1906 as Ancient Records of Egypt. It continues to be an important collection of translated texts; as Peter A. Piccione wrote in the preface to its 2001 reprint, it "still contains certain texts and inscriptions that have not been retranslated since that time."
Through the years, as Breasted built up the collection of the Haskell Oriental Museum, he dreamed of establishing a research institute, “a laboratory for the study of the rise and development of civilization” that would trace Western civilization to its roots in the ancient Middle East.[3] As World War I wound down, he sensed an opportunity. He wrote to John D. Rockefeller Jr., son of the major donor to the University, and proposed founding what would become the Oriental Institute. He planned a research trip through the Middle East, which he suggested was ready to receive scholars. Rockefeller responded by pledging $50,000 over five years for the Oriental Institute. He separately assured the University of Chicago President Judson to pledge another $50,000 to the cause. The University of Chicago contributed additional support and, in May 1919, the Oriental Institute was founded.
Breasted had two key objectives for the field trip: to purchase antiquities for the Oriental Institute and to select sites for future excavation. The group ultimately consisted of Breasted and four of his students (or former students): Ludlow Bull, William Edgerton (both graduate students in Egyptology); Daniel Luckenbill (professor of Assyriology at the University of Chicago), and William Shelton (a former student who was a professor of Semitic languages at Emory University).
The general itinerary of the expedition was:
August 1919: from Chicago to England, by way of New York and France September 1919: England October 1919: from England to Cairo, by way of Paris, Venice, and Alexandria November 1919: Egypt December 1919: Egypt January 1920: Egypt February 1920: from Egypt to Bombay March 1920: Bombay to Basra, Mesopotamia April 1920: Mesopotamia May 1920: from Mesopotamia to Arab State (today Syria) and Beirut June 1920: from Damascus to Jerusalem, Haifa, Cairo, and London July 1920: to Chicago
As Breasted scouted future archaeological sites and visited antiquities dealers, he came to know many of the British political figures and scholars working in Egypt. These included Gertrude Bell, Howard Carter, Lord Carnarvon, Lord Allenby, and the Arab leader Faisal, who would become king of Iraq. Due to Breasted's extensive travels and knowledge of the political situation throughout the Middle East, Lord Allenby, at that time the High Commissioner for Egypt, requested that he inform the British Prime Minister and Earl Curzon about the hostility of the western Arabs to the occupying British forces before returning to America.
Breasted's acquisitions were significant for the growth and scope of the collections of the Oriental Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago. One of his most well-known purchases was the mummy of Meresamun, a singer in the interior of the Temple of Amun at Karnak. On this trip, Breasted showed far greater confidence in his selections, as well as a talent for negotiating with dealers. Although he did not considered himself a connoisseur of Egyptian art, he developed a keen eye for objects of beauty that were also highly instructive.
The first excavation of the Oriental Institute was in Egypt at Medinet Habu, one of the sites which he had recommended. Breasted returned to Egypt frequently; in 1922 and 1923 he aided Howard Carter in deciphering the seals from the recently discovered Tomb of Tutankhamun. [5] On April 25, 1923, Breasted became the first archaeologist to be elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences. The honor helped to legitimize the struggling profession of archaeology in American academic circles.
Breasted died on December 2, 1935 of a streptococcus infection after returning from his last expedition.[4][5]
"If one were asked to name a scholar who, above all others, stimulated the development of ancient historical studies in the United States during the earlier part of the twentieth century, that honor would have to fall to the colossal figure of James Henry Breasted."
While at Chicago, Breasted had a home built near the university. Its carriage house was designed to look like a mastaba. The house is now used as the fraternity house of Phi Gamma Delta.
Breasted is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Rockford, Illinois. His grave site is marked with a large Aswan granite cube, marked simply with his name and “historian and archaeologist.”